


Rest For A Spell

by Dragonwithatale



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Castiel Whump (Supernatural), Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Isolation, M/M, Multi, Sick Castiel (Supernatural), spell gone wrong, the author has a grudge against enochian as a conlang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23044327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonwithatale/pseuds/Dragonwithatale
Summary: A spell gone wrong leaves Castiel trapped alone in the Bunker with dwindling grace and growing worry about the Winchesters, who have vanished.Set vaguely towards the end of s12.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 14
Kudos: 92





	Rest For A Spell

**Author's Note:**

> So this was mostly me therapy writing when Random Health Bullshit was kicking my ass, which then ended up sitting on my drive for months because Random Health Bullshit was kicking my ass. I’m at the *fling into the void* point with it now, so here have some angst.
> 
> Thanks to 

**_Day 0_ **

The witch had grinned before Cas burned the life from her, casting her hands out in a triumph that flashed to fear at the last moment. Her spell still snapped into place, draping over Cas like cobwebs. He found himself brushing at his hair and face as he turned away from the corpse.

“Sam? Dean? I think that’s the last one.” Silence answered him, echoing back through the halls of the Bunker. He hurried to the library, calling as he went, listening for any sign of his friends. There was no reply. No sign of further witches either - no tang of magic in the air, no chanting, no curling wrongness of rotten spellwork.

Cas felt a small curl of panic growing with every step. It was impossible, unthinkable, that the Winchesters were both dead. But why weren’t they answering?

The library was empty, orderly shelves untouched, wooden floor dotted with blood (Dean’s work, the body in the back hallway said). So was the rest of the first floor (save for the bodies of another two witches). So was the rest of the Bunker. Nothing answered Cas’ shouts but silence. The fact that he couldn’t find their bodies was cold comfort compared to the fact that they were  _ gone _ . He fumbled his phone out of his pocket and dialed first Dean, then Sam. Nothing but an angry beeping noise on the other end. The Impala still sat in the garage, their weapons and go bags were still in their rooms, and Dean’s coffee was sitting cold in the kitchen, abandoned only an hour ago.

The problem came when Cas tried to go outside to look for them. As he ran up the spiral staircase to the short entrance tunnel the clinging sensation of cobwebs turned into lines of fire across his vessel. Cas gritted his teeth and kept going, only to slam into an invisible wall two feet from the door. Flaring his wings and grace brought him to his knees as the spell bit deeper, burning into his true form. He gave up, pulling himself slowly back to the stairs, and the bite of the magic faded to a dull ache.

* * *

Cas sat in the library, slumped back in a chair, staring angrily at the ceiling. Trying to leave via the garage had ended in the same painful result as the front door. None of the counter spells Cas had tried did anything more than fizzle and pop uselessly. The phones didn’t work, and the internet was dead. There wasn’t an angel alive who’d help him, but that didn’t matter when he couldn’t even hear any of them. Summoning Crowley had failed, as expected.

He was alone. Deep underground with a pile of corpses, which he would have to figure out how to take care of before too long.

Only one of the witches had a grimoire on her. The others had scribbled notes and piles of ingredients, and everywhere there was the spell. It cut into his grace still, wrapping tight to him, coiling and clinging like a panicked snake. Given time he should be able to tease some secrets out of it, divine its purpose, but now… much like an actual snake, it acted on its own will and reacted suspiciously to every twitch Cas made.

There were no answers here. Or anywhere.

Nothing but blind faith to counter the crawling terror that Sam and Dean were dead, lying cold somewhere just out of reach. Why else hadn’t they come back?

Cas pushed away from the table, standing abruptly. Right now, he could move the witches into cold-storage until he had a better solution. He could clean up, and research.

He wasn’t ready to accept that they might be dead. Not now. It’d happened so many times before, but they always returned. They always broke the odds. One day he’d lose them both forever, he knew that. Just… not yet. Silent heaven above, please.

Not yet.

* * *

**_Day 12_ **

Yet another spellbook arced through the air only to be brought up short by the existence of walls. Cas glared at its mangled pages, wishing that angelic smiting actually extended to books.

He couldn’t translate the grimoire or the notes. Somehow, it was a language he didn’t recognize, and he’d yet to even find a close match. In almost two weeks all Cas had managed to do was learn the joy of stress headaches.

He started pacing across the library floor again. He hated being caged like this. The Bunker was massive, cavernously echoing and empty, and at the same time the walls were pressing in more with every day. He’d adjusted to losing his wings, to being trapped in one form, one tiny frail vessel, really he had, but being confined now to a concrete tomb…

Every day he’d gone up to the door. He’d pushed at the invisible web until he screamed his throat raw, searching with his grace for a weakness in the spell. Every day, he’d failed, crawling back to safety when he couldn’t bear any more pain.

(Every day he’d wept as the spell coiled back around him, cocooning him away from the world, clinging under his skin; a sick parody of comfort, holding him together after tearing him apart.)

And with every day what hope he had dwindled, even as he clung to it. Twelve days was a long time for hunters to be missing. If they were alive they would have come home. They would have been here to help.

Maybe Jody would come to investigate in a few months.

Cas paused, swaying slightly. He felt... off, somehow. Lightheaded. Must be the headaches. He huffed a sigh and rubbed at the back of his neck. Sam had mentioned lying down in a dark room as a cure once. Maybe he’d try that later.

He went to retrieve the thrown books and had to catch himself against the wall as the room spun.

Maybe later should be now.

Cas stumbled (actually stumbled, which was so  _ wrong _ , he’s an angel he doesn’t get sick) into the hallways and to the nearest bedroom. It happened to be Dean’s, and he shut the door and made his unsteady way to collapse on the bed. The blankets still held Dean’s scent, and Cas curled up instinctively, fingers tangling in the fabric. Lying down was good, and being surrounded by the memory of Dean was comforting.

He closed his eyes and drifted.

* * *

**_Day 21_ **

Sam’s bed was not as comfortable as Dean’s, but it did come with a television. Unfortunately, Netflix was dead and half the video collection in the Bunker was porn. Which was interesting, granted, but there was no actual story to most of them.

Cas’ attempts at escape had rather stalled; the walk back out to the library had proved too exhausting to manage. It was an annoyingly human sensation: as if he were a poorly mended pot leaking water everywhere instead of an angel. Ignoring the fatigue, telling his vessel that it was fine, had worked great. Up until the point, that is, where he found himself on the floor, slumped against the door to the archives, gasping for air he shouldn’t need.

The only option left had been to make his way back to the dorms, keeping a hand on the wall as he slowly and shakily made his way back to a bed.

Over the next few days he’d found that short trips with lots of breaks were fine, but pushing was a horrible idea. So Cas drifted from bed to chair, back to bed, with brief stops communing closely with the walls. He was finding them to be very supportive.

The floor, too. It always caught him if he fell over.

He had enough energy to be concerned over the whole process (and that was an understatement. This was beginning to remind Cas of Falling, and he was helpless and terrified and  _ tired _ ), but not really enough to do anything about it. The spell kept wrapping closer and closer around him, and he ached down to his bones, but it didn’t feel like his grace was dwindling.

The only thing he could do was swap out Game of Thrones disks and lay down again until his strength came back.

* * *

**_Day 28_ **

Cas was cold.

So really, he was dying and ought to be put out of his misery.

The blanket was a whole five feet away, piled on the floor of the library where it had abandoned him when he was fetching a book. Might as well be in Australia.

At least Australia would be warm.

He burrowed deeper into his borrowed sweater and bathrobe, turning his attention back to his book. This one had promise, and after paging through a few more chapters, he added it to the pile that would return to the bedroom with him. He could read it later while lying down. Sitting had… become a bit of a problem over the past few days. Just being upright drained him; he’d found he might get an hour to watch a show, or read in the library, and then this wave of sheer exhaustion would overtake him. He had a very short window after that to get back to a bed, or he’d end up on the floor for a few hours, barely able to lift his head.

He turned to the next book. Gibberish on the Elder Gods as chronicled by the recently insane. Nothing in the entire tome was understandable without the use of psychedelics, which Cas did not have access to. Nor was there actually enough alcohol left for him to get drunk.

He gave up on the book and tossed it onto the reject pile. Which, of course, set the whole pile off balance and sent them tumbling to the floor.

Perfect.

Next book. How to conjure djinn and not die a terrible death - very wrong, likely lethal. The uses of holy water in hedgewitchery and alternate blessed materials by religion - fascinating, if not useful at present. Mostly incorrect angelic lore with made up angels — and there at the end, a familiar line of nonsense claiming to be a divine language given to a mortal (as if) to communicate with angels. To compel them to obey (also a laughable concept — Cas would love to have seen his superiors’ expression had a human ever tried this), to bind them, to make their power your own.

How the fuck had something this fundamentally wrong actually worked? Castiel paged back and forth but no, this was an exact match. Binding an angel. Taking their power - taking his Grace. Taking a fundamental part of him and using it for some  _ spell _ — Cas’ hands stilled.

Oh Father no. No no no.

The witch had finished her spell, she had cast her magic into the air and then Castiel was alone. Sam and Dean had been gone.

An inhuman scream ripped itself from his throat and he threw the book violently away. His vessel curled in on itself, hands fisting in hair, tears falling as he started sobbing uncontrollably. They had used him, his power, to murder his family and then locked him into a tomb. So what if he’d killed all of the witches. In the end, they had won. No more hunter threat, no more Winchesters on the road keeping rogue covens in line. No more Dean picking crappy motels, no more Sam poring over research, no more brothers bickering. No early morning calls from Sam, no cranky texts from Dean.

No more bright beautiful souls.

And no more meddling angel, always trailing along after, keeping the hunters alive and safe, helping however they would let him. Castiel was trapped, and Falling, fading as the spell consumed him alive.

And now he was utterly,  _ irrevocably _ alone.

* * *

**_Day 30_ **

Cas ought to be researching a way to free himself, now that he knew the spell. But he was so tired. So tired of being awake, of being trapped, and thinking was getting harder every day. Like his head was full of feathers and static.

He lay curled in his small nest, cobbled together days ago from Sam’s pillows and Dean’s blankets, shirts and sheets, everything soft and warm and smelling like home.

And fuck he was homesick. Oh not for heaven, not for empty white halls and rigid order, not for the web of light that pieced souls together into a whole, trapping them like butterflies in amber. For Sam. And Dean.

He  _ missed _ them.

Sam going on his morning runs, Dean listening to music a little too loud, both of them bickering silently before they got their coffee. Dean making pancakes for dinner because he wanted to, humming to himself. Sam sitting quietly with a book, long legs pulled up, completely absorbed and lost and happy for once. Movie nights, both of them arguing over what to watch and which character was the better, throwing popcorn at each other, trying to drag Cas in even when he didn’t understand. Dean snoring softly, face down on the table in the library, books shoved to one side. Sam’s quiet smile when Cas would walk into a room.

He was never going to see them again.

It had always been coming. That one day, there’d be a fight that they wouldn’t win. They’d die. And wherever their souls went, Cas wouldn’t be able to follow. Heaven was closed to him. 

(They couldn’t go elsewhere, they  _ couldn’t _ . They weren’t monsters, they didn’t belong in Purgatory. They didn’t deserve Hell. And the Empty… Billie is gone, they should be safe.)

But now? He didn’t even know where they were. Not their souls, not their bodies, not a trace of them. He couldn’t give them the hunter’s funeral they’d wanted. He couldn’t say goodbye.

They were just gone.

He had a tomb to wander in, filled with the memory of them living; with the things they’d loved. The fading wisps of their scent, already grown old and stale, leaving him in the cold silence. And himself a wretched ghost, too stubborn to die. Couldn’t just lay down and stop. Couldn’t end it.

Couldn’t get up and do something either.

Father above he was useless.

He wrapped his fingers tighter in the shirt under his head, ignoring the dampness brought by his tears.

* * *

**_Day 40 something_ **

Sometimes when stars die, they burn brighter for a brief moment before fading out.

Cas had a good day. He didn’t know what day it was anymore, but he’d been able to sit up, to walk without stopping every three steps. To sit at the table and pen out a letter of farewell. A pointless exercise, but it had kept bothering him, lying there helpless, that someday someone might find this place and not know what it meant. Not know who the Winchesters were. Not know what really happened, to them, to the world, to everything.

He’d left it in the War Room, along with two letters, one to Dean and the other Sam. Telling them how sorry he was that he failed them. That he loved them both.

They were dead but he needed to say the words.

He sat there at the table and mourned them, saying goodbye. He lingered over the paper, fingers tracing over their names, swallowing back endless tears.

“Knowing you was an honor. And the best part of my life. And I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.”

He stood, and turned, and left, heading back to his nest, where he was fairly sure he’d stay until he finally died. His grace had been guttering for days, fading like scattered mist. It wouldn’t be long now. Not long at all.

Sometimes, however, there is no warning. Sometimes things just end.

Cas collapsed in the hallway.

* * *

**_Day… Day…_ **

The hallway floor was nice. Well, really it was freezing and Cas was shivering uncontrollably by now, but lying down was good.

Cas drifted, eyes slitted, face pressed into the concrete. Too tired to think. Not quite tired enough to sleep, to slip slide away, and God he wished he could. Just be done with all of this.

Something broke the silence. Metal? Voices? Anxious voices. A pair of footsteps thudded towards him.

“Cas! Sam he’s over here!” Hands ran him over briefly. They were warm and gentle. And familiar. Dean. “Cas talk to me buddy.”

So he’d reached the hallucinations stage of dying.

A second pair of footsteps. “Is he...?” Oh Sam’s here too. That’s good.

“He’s shivering and he won’t answer. Help me move him.”

Those warm hands gently turned him, checked him over again, and then he was being carried somewhere, lifted onto a soft surface.

“God, he’s ice cold. Are you sure—“

“We treat it like hypothermia Sam. Grab some more blankets.” Those warm hands started stripping off layers of clothing. He slitted his eyes open to watch as Dean shed his own clothes, getting down to bare skin, and  _ then _ there’s six plus feet of almost naked Winchester pressing up against him, wrapping around him and pulling a blanket up, gloriously warm and smelling like heaven. Cas did not think hallucinations did this. They’re much nicer than he thought. He’d been picturing Lucifer again, and burning alive…

“So he made a nest out of all our shit.” Sam was back. Wasn’t dying of cold supposed to be quieter than this? You hit the ‘feeling way too warm’ stage and the hallucinations and then you just sort of fall asleep.

“Like some fucking bird? Dork.” This last was breathed into Cas’ hair, fond and broken all at once. Dean shouldn’t be crying. There’s rustling fabric behind him; another blanket drapes over them, then a third. And then there’s another six plus feet of Winchester crawling in behind him, tucking himself against Cas’ back, burying his nose in Cas’ hair.

He let his eyes slide shut on the inevitable tears. There are far worse ways to die than being held by the ones you love, even if it’s not real.

Still.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Or tried to; it came out slurred, drunken, more an ‘m sor’ noise than proper words. God, he can’t even apologize properly for letting them die.

“Cas?” they both said, so anxious and hopeful it hurt. “Cas, you with us?” Dean this time. Cas fought to open his eyes, catch a glimpse of that impossible green.

“Sorry.”

“Cas don’t apologize.” Sam pressed closer to him, wrapping an arm around him and Dean both. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“Let… let you die.”

“Cas we’re right here.” And Dean’s kissing him on the forehead, holding him tight like he never had while alive, and Cas’ heart just broke.

“Sorry.”

They took turns hushing him. He gave in and let them, finally falling down into sleep.

* * *

The room was dark enough that Cas wondered for a second if he were finally dead; but no, he was warm, lying on a bed, half-pulled over onto someone’s chest, their arms wrapped tight around him even in sleep. There was a light whistling snore that clicked after a beat as belonging to Dean.

Dean was alive.

Cas took a deep shuddering breath and started weeping.

“Cas?” Dean fumbled for a minute in the dark before managing to flick the lamp on. “Hey there, I’ve got you Cas.” His hands held tight, stroking down Cas’ back soothingly. “It’s okay sweetheart, I promise.”

“ _ Dean _ .” It took forever for his vessel to calm, exhaustion replacing the overwhelming emotions slowly but steadily. Cas reached up to touch the hunter’s face, brushing lovingly against his cheek before his arm became too heavy. He worked his mouth, trying to remember the shapes of the words he needed. “You’re… you’re okay? Sam?”

Dean’s hand brushed soothingly through his hair and his eyes slid shut. “He’s here, he just stepped out to look at that goddamn spell.”

“No.” No they have to get out of here, it’s not safe, the spell. “You… must leave… _get out_.”

“Cas, hey,” Dean caught his arm easily, holding him down while he started trying to push Dean out of the bed, concern written large on his face and he’s worried about the wrong thing. “It’s fine, it’s just me.”

“Dean. The spell.” It took a moment before comprehension filtered into the hunter’s eyes.

“We broke it.” Cas stilled. “It’s how we got in, you’re safe.”

_ They _ were safe. Dean, Sam, they were alive and they were safe and it couldn’t hurt them. Dean pulled him close, wrapping him safely in a warm embrace as he cried again, relief pulling the tears from him. It was over.

Dean murmured soft comforting things, “we’ll fix this” mixed with “I gotcha sweetheart” until, exhausted, he slept.

* * *

Cas was not getting better.

The days were a meaningless blur, drowsy fogged hours and fitful naps broken only by visits from an increasingly agitated Dean and a more and more worried Sam, who was not sleeping. Neither of them were really, except what little fitful moments they could catch curled up against Cas, but Sam was pushing himself to the bone.

Sam would whisper “please don’t die” against his skin, voice muffled by tears he wouldn’t shed, and held on like he could drag Cas back to health by sheer will alone.

Dean he would hear crying in the hallway in the brief moments before the door swung shut.

Cas had tried to tell them to let him go — this was going to kill them too and that was unbearable — but Dean had informed Cas in a flat voice that they both loved him, he was their family, and there was no way in hell they were going to let him go. As annoying and frustrating as that was, it was comforting to finally know he meant as much to them as they did to him. Even if not quite in the same way, it was more than enough.

* * *

It was a day, or perhaps a night, like all those before it when Sam slammed into the room, startling Cas awake and sending Dean for his gun. 

“I found it.” It took Dean but a moment to understand (though Cas did not) and he bolted from the bed, letting Sam drag him away. Cas stared at the still-open door, ears straining to catch any hint. Silence reigned, broken only by the harsh panting of his own breathing.

Cas was caught between letting himself slip back into unconsciousness and concern, the edges of the world going soft and grey, when Dean screamed in the distance.

No. No not again. Not while he was  _ trapped _ , lying here like broken toy. Dean’s gun was still on the bed, and he grabbed it and hauled himself over the side of the bed to land in a painful pile on the concrete. If he had to crawl, he would.

Sam cried out and went silent and Cas screamed into the stone. Every inch was a fucking mile, they were a world away and his wings were broken and he was too late. Why the  _ fuck _ was he always too late.

Footsteps came running down the hallway towards him. His fingers were clumsy cocking the gun, and his aim wavered as he pointed through the doorway. They would pay.

“Cas?” Dean only spoke a second before he stepped into sight, just enough time for Cas to take his finger off the trigger and all the tension to drain from his body in a woozy rush. “Fuck, what the hell are you doing?” The hunter slapped the lights on and knelt beside him, anxiously pulling him upright to lean with his back to the bed. It took a moment as the world whirled and spun for Cas to be able to answer, but when he did it was with an angry glare.

“You screamed.  _ Sam _ screamed.”

“Shit.” Dean rubbed the back of his neck, eyes darting to the side. It drew Cas’ attention to his throat; red blood trickled down slowly from a small puncture. “I thought he told you what he was researching.”

“Dean.” It was more a growl than anything else. Cas reached towards Dean’s throat and the hunter grimaced, wiping away the blood.

“I’m fine. Sam found a spell - well, he built one. Cas, we can charge you back up.”

Goddamn idiotic Winchesters and their stupid heroic quests to save everyone around them by throwing themselves into harm’s way. “How?”

“You get that look off your face,” Dean huffed. Cas continued to glare. “Sam found a way to tap our souls. It’s not that much—“

“It is—“

“And it’s done anyways.” There was pleading in those green eyes. “Cas just let us help. Sam thinks this will work, give your grace a kick in the ass so it’ll start healing. Please, just let us help,” he finished softly.

Cas was shaken. He had given up so very long ago, been holding each moment with his hunters as a precious impossibility that would never come again. He hadn’t hoped for anything but a quiet end. But Dean had faith. He believed this would work, and Sam had been working tirelessly for God knew how long now to make it possible.

How could he possibly say no?

Sam rounded the corner and came to an abrupt halt when he saw them on the floor. “Cas what’re you doing—“

“We forgot to tell him there might be screaming in the immediate future, Sammy,” Dean cut him off.

Sam’s face shifted from confusion to bewilderment to understanding. “Oh.”

“Yeah  _ oh _ .”

The younger hunter came to kneel in front of him, looking very contrite and small and weary. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to get your hopes up and then I got so caught up in figuring everything out—”

“Sam,” Cas broke in. “It’s okay.” Sam gave him a small pained expression and Cas rolled his eyes. “Now it is.” That earned him a slight smile. “Spell?”

“Yeah.” Sam fumbled in his jeans pocket for a second and fished out a vial, glowing bright as stardust between his fingers. “It’s a bit more ephemeral than Gadreel’s grace was, but you should just be able to inhale.” Cas gave a nod and Sam scooted closer, on his other side. He uncapped the lid carefully and held it in front of Cas’ lips.

Living light poured out and Cas instinctively gasped it in—

_ quick smiles and easy laughter covering over a lifetime of cuts and bruises and bleeding loss, warm and fierce and kind and it slides down into him like it belongs, and it does, he cradled it through hellfire— _

_ gentle and strong and absolute, breathing paradox, a world of hurt and choice, love and hope and anger, hot and cool all at once as it wraps around him and it will never let go — _

_ they sing to him, an infinite chorus of two voices, bright and beautiful and the depth and breadth is unthinkable as they knit him together and fill him up with life and love love love love _

_ Love _

* * *

**_Day 1_ **

It wasn’t perfect. These things never are. 

Sam snored for one. Cas watched him fondly, eyes drooping, half asleep himself. Dean murmured and burrowed closer on his other side, tucking his head into the crook of Cas’ neck.

Their souls sang on either side of him and inside as well, a curious harmony that was indescribably precious. He basked in it, reveled in the welcoming peace. He hadn’t known, not like this, how much he meant to them both. He hadn’t hoped.

He should do that more often.

Sam gave a particularly egregious snort and Cas chuckled softly to himself, leaning carefully forward to kiss Sam awake.

“Cas?” Sam’s voice was sleepy and pleased all at once, though it slipped quickly into worry. “What’s wrong?”

Cas kissed him again, lightly. “Stop snoring.”

Cas could feel Sam squinting at him in the dark. “Fuck you.”

“Go the fuck back to sleep,” Dean grumbled, wrapping his arm tighter around Cas’ middle and pillowing his head on Cas’ chest.

Not perfect. But it was his.

**Author's Note:**

> So, what did the spell actually do you ask? Dean and Sam were banished, similarly to how angel banishing works on Cas. Painful landing and all. They couldn’t get back in while it was active and feeding off Cas, though - the same barrier that kept him in kept them out. Should it have killed them, yes, but magic is particular about grammar, and conlangs* do not have the vocabulary required to do what you actually want. 
> 
> I have a whole rant on Enochian don’t get me started.
> 
> *the exception is klingon, seriously that thing is built up incredibly


End file.
